Moho Forum

Yes, I"m a disaster. But I guess it's all a learning stage. I"ve only just learned about Moho last week...so I can't expect much more right now.

Here is what I did. I made a quick scene in SwishMax and then loaded the boop movie made in moho
http://celeryhart.com/BoopMoho/boopmoho.htm

I loaded it into a sprite in Swish which I"M more familiar with. But as you can see poor Betty Boop has problems.
First, I have no idea why that line is across her forehead. How did I do that..??
Second, obviously I screwed up attaching her legs and cloths together. Should I have drawn the cloths and the legs in one piece. Oh dear.. !!

Third, I haven't a clue how to make things move yet... this was the best I could do under the circumstances....

I haven't given up hope that I will be able to mix Swish and Moho together like this. Although I see it takes awhile for the loaded Moho movie to get going... not sure why. I didn't make a preloader for this so that may make a difference.

I welcome all suggestions.... !!! Thx...

Celeryhart

Good job for your first animation.

No... legs and clothes don't need to be on the same layer.

To get those "hippy thigh" areas to move with the leg is... well... it is kind of easy in my head... I will try to translate my brain waves into new user speak...

I am assuming from your other questions that you are using the region binding... offset bone... type animation...


Create 2 bones that are children of the hips (above where the thigh bones would be).

Adjust the strength and size of each bone so the only control each leg side of the... uh... hippy... crotchy... area of her... outfit.

Name each of thigh bones. You only need to name the thigh bones at this point.

Select each "upper thigh" bone and select the constraints pull down menu and set the angle control to the appropriate thigh bone... you may want to use a lesser value like .5 or something... experiment.

When you animate those upper thigh bones will rotate just like the thighs and the clothes will follow along a bit better.

Here is a 2 minute slapped together example:

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/hip_control.moho.zip

-vern

I think I"m going to cry.... I can't follow what you said. I"ve zipped the moho file to my server.. Could you look at it and explain what I'm doing wrong.
I don't know what you mean "name the bones." Oh man, this is grueling... I don't understand where you want me to put them either.... Whaaaaaaaaaaa...

Thanks so much for your help.

http://www.celeryhart.com/boop2_ani.zip

Celeryhart... I"ll get this if it kills me... !!!

I think you should go back and do the tutorials on bones and rigging characters.

You are so darn close... very good job on the first shot. I tend to... over complicate things.

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Do those tutorials and look at that goofy weird character file where his arms and legs are all over the place... I forget which one... it is the one describing region binding and bone offset.

Do those tutorials till you know them by heart. Not kidding. You should get to a point where you could do one in a few minutes. Keep learning the tools. the layer binding tool is kind of tough because it is hard to "see" the results just looking at the files.

Open up the any of the finished tutorial files and... DESTROY IT! Not kidding... rip it apart... pull the bones around... look how they effect each other. Change the bone strength and see how it effects things.
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Naming bones...

Click on the bone tool on a bone layer. Select a bone. At the top of the window there is text box to name your bones. You need to do this for using constraints. You really should name all the bones anyway for easy reference (you have by default. All of your bones had number names. That is a preference setting in Moho to automatically name bones.... very good idea.)

I looked at your file... first off... create a head bone. You need another bone connected to the last bone in the body... the one at the top that the arms connect to. Right at the neck.

Move the head group layer down to be under the bone group with all of the other layers... what I mean is... move the LAYER not the head itself. Move the entire head group layer so it is a child of the bone layer in the layers palette.

Once you learn the Bind Layer tool... you want to bind that group layer to the Head Bone. Then the head moves by rotating that head bone.

The head bone should actually be ABOVE the neck much more so it won't interfere with the arms and body. Then use the offset to move the head back down. OR... set the bone strength of the head to 0... then it won't move anything except the head group layer.

I would also suggest... you add a new hip bone.

This is tough... the first bone in the hierarchy is that bone pointing up at the hips. The leg bones are parented to that one bone. You really should have another bone that is "higher" in the hierarchy but under it on the screen pointing down to the base of the crotch.

The legs would connect to that bone. And the back bone (the "old" hip bone) would connect also to that new hip bone.

If you do this... all of your leg and hip animation must be redone. Those hip changes would cause your bones to rotate all over the place. You will also need to offset the leg bones again... changing parents will mess up the offsets.

When I get a chance I can slap a few of those bone changes together with your file and post it. But you are so close I would love to see you "get it" on your own. It sticks in your brain really good when that happens.

The trick I mentioned about using extra bones for the base of her outfit above her legs... won't... work easily with this file. She is kind of turned at a 3/4 angle. It is hard to get those bones in there.

I would suggest moving the right leg layer (the "top" leg) ABOVE the body layer. Move the points that shape the leg hole in her outfit so it DOESN'T form the hole shape. Use the LEG to COVER the outfit to create the ILLLUSION of the leg comming out of her outfit.

This is a good kind of practice file to keep around. I had a similar character "practice file" I started that was a mess... now almost 2 years later... she's looking pretty good.

Phew... this is really hard to explain but I'm trying.

Any way... keep practicing... keep learning. I will help when I can. You actually have come pretty far pretty quick. Keep up the good work and try not to get too frustrated. There are MANY more frustrating things to deal with... if you understand the tools... you can get around them.

-vern

Gosh, Vern, you've almost written a novel. Thanks so much for your advice and time. I have been doing exactly what you suggested... going thru the tuts again. I love the constraint thingies...and how you can change it with your scroller on the mouse.... that is cool. I missed that the first time.

Poor Betty Boop is going to get thrashed in the next week or so.... as I have been practising on her. I smoothed her leg movements and put constraints on them. I"m glad you said the bones won't work in her hips like that cause it was about to drive me mad... !! I was going from bad to worse.... I"ll figure it out eventually.

I will copy your instructions and put them in the hip folder I made for you and go over and over it. Yes, I definately will be going thru those tuts six ways to Sunday.... I feel I"m close too..... and yet so far. But I am learning and that is the main thing.
I"m doing the tuts right from the start again and again... !! This is all so new to me and I"ve far from mastered the draw tools so why I"m jumping into animation so quick is sheer lunacy... !!!

You are a doll for helping me though.... !!! Thanks a bunch.

Celeryhart

Still trying to figure the best way to make shading on cloths, legs, faces etc.... it is so easy in Swish. Sigh....!!! Practise, practise, practise... !!!!

The line on the head seems as an error in the outline of the hair. The shape filler of Flash is sensitive to the proper outlines. Maybe Moho's SWF converter (the ming library) made something wrong, I think the outline is not closed. A little replacing of the points at the curl above her right eye - this is the place of the error - could help.

Thanks Fazek!

I found that problem to. Yes... just find that spot on the hair where there are two... strangly connected splines. It looks like... two ends of the shape... kind of overlapped and connected somehow... wierd.

Delete the fill shape so you can see the lines better... you will have to do the fill again anyway to fix it.

Find that spot and just break those points and reconnect. Fill the shape again and it is fine.

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As for helping out... you are one of the few new users who hasn't complained incessantly about the horrible tools. You actually sound positive and enthused... and it seems that you did some of the tutorials.

So... I feel good about encouraging you. And hopefully others will find these posts helpful as well.

-vern

Bingo.... !!! I think that did it... !! I reconnected the little dots in her hair and I heard it snap and that line seems to have gone away. Course I probably won't know for sure till I make it a swf file again but I"ll do that later.
Thx guys.... !!!

So if you've taken poor Betty Boop apart, am I doing the layers right ? Please correct me if I"m not as I want to learn to do it right. In a way it's a lot like SwishMax so that helps me considerably. But it's the "bones".... those wonderful bones that make this program so awesome. I sure love them.... !!! I've put the head folder under the skeleton now and will add a bone. Last night I tried and tried to fix her hip bones so the clothes would move with her properly but I finally gave up and will hit the tutorials again and then do some practise on very rough drawings.

I downloaded some eye lashes that someone had posted on the forum and they are now in my brush folder .... trouble is I don't even know how to use them. When I draw a line ( pencil tool ) to make an eye lash I get a whole row of them. So I've got a lot to learn in just the basics as I'm not even familiar with the terminology yet.... !!


Vern you are so right.... it's best to just go thru these tuts until you know the tools and things become familiar. It's a good thing I have two monitors as I can pull up a tut on one monitor and then have Moho open on another... so it makes it easy to follow the instructions and know which tools are which.

I think I have sparked some interest in Moho over in the Swish forums I belong too. So thats good. The more people we have doing this the more we can learn. I always read the posts as it is a good way to learn.

I found in Swish that the more I took apart someone elses work the more I learned. It's a huge help.

As far as not complaining about the tools.... believe me I've cussed under my breath a time of two but you have to work with what you've got and I can't expect Moho to be like Swish. After all Swish doesn't have bones... so you see, a program can't have everything.
I do miss the shading capability in Swish.... take a look at these drawings I made in Swish and you can see why.

http://www.celeryhart.com/twins.html

http://www.celeryhart.com/AsianLadies/

Well, I guess I"ve rambled on long enough this morning. I"m sure I'll be sending out an S.O.S soon enough but I"ll try not to be a pain in the butt. Hopefull others can learn from this too.
So it's off to master the basics for now.... !!

Thanks again.... !! Oh by the way.... is there a color picker tool I"m not finding.... I try to make two things the same color and have to guess what shade to pick from. If I had a color picker I could just use it to choose the same color..!! I"m going to have to go over that tut about saving styles..... Oh mercy me... so much to learn... !!!

Celeryhart

Greetings and welcome,

Celeryhart wrote:I downloaded some eye lashes that someone (Barry Baker) had posted on the forum and they are now in my brush folder .... trouble is I don't even know how to use them. When I draw a line ( pencil tool ) to make an eye lash I get a whole row of them.

Brushes are basically bitmap images repeated along a curve/line. You have some control over degree of random rotation/jitter, how far apart they are along the line, and they are also affected by line width.

Celeryhart wrote:I do miss the shading capability in Swish.... take a look at these drawings I made in Swish and you can see why.

Very nice. You can get creative shading effects in Moho with just the linear and circular gradients, "shading shapes", and some masking. Note that you can apply gradients to the shading shapes and then move the shapes around, as Moho doesn't currently let you move the gradient endpoints.

Here's a very quick example:



(zipped Moho file here)

The drawback is masking won't currently export to SWF format, so if SWF is your target format you're out of luck.

Celeryhart wrote:Oh by the way.... is there a color picker tool I"m not finding.... I try to make two things the same color and have to guess what shade to pick from. If I had a color picker I could just use it to choose the same color..!! I"m going to have to go over that tut about saving styles..... Oh mercy me... so much to learn... !!!

No colour picker as you may be accustomed to in other software, but (assuming both shapes are already filled) you can easily copy a colour from one object to another.
1. Choose the Select Shape tool (the button looks a little like a white kidney bean resting under a black beach umbrella)
2. Click on the shape with the colour you want to copy - it should change into a checkerboard pattern
3. Click the Copy button on the Styles panel
4. Click the shape you want to change (again, it should change to a checkerboard pattern)
5. Click the Paste button on the Styles panel

If both shapes are on the same layer there is a shorter technique.
1. Use the Select Shape tool
2. Click on the shape you want to change (checkerboard)
3. Alt-Click on the shape with the colour you want to copy

However, learning to use Styles is the key to better productivity in the long run. With a Style, when you change the style all shapes using that style will change.

Regards, Myles.

Oh yeah CeleryHart..

I was going to mention styles before.

I noticed in your file that you did have a "Skin" style... however it was not... used consistently.

Basically create a style that would contain whatever you are sure won't "change" or can be reused effectively.... like "Skin" or "Dress" or "shoes"... whatever.

I like to create a general fill shape style for individual elements and a "global" stroke style.

I apply the stroke style to everything... then if I need to change the stroke on the whole thing... I don't need to change a bunch of styles or shapes just the one. I can also "override" the stroke setting for individual shapes if needed...

You can "override" a style (as you did in your sample file on a few shapes) by clicking any of the following checkboxes for that shape:
Fill Color
Line color
Line width

If you have a style applied to a shape and check any of those boxes you "override" the style setting for those values...

This is useful as you can "customize" or modify certain attributes of a shapes style even if you have a style applied.

If you have a style for a red stroke with a 5 width you could apply it to a shape... click only the Line width box and change it to 2... line stays red... but now the width is 2.

-vern

Oh you guys this program is simply consuming me.. !! Trouble is I"m trying to learn "everything" at once and not absorbing the basics step by step. Simple things like the copying color. Thanks so much for the explanation Myles that helped a lot. Now Betty Boop is all the same color.....how easy was that eh..?? I've written it down now so will keep it handy. I"m writing a lot of things down now so I can memorize them.

I discovered the walking tutorial yesterday and the lip sync and nearly went berserk.... !! " Hasta la vista, baby" How easy it was is amazing. Course I was working from the tut so half the thing was made already but I did draw my own head and mouth and made him talk... too flippen cool... !!! I screwed up when I tried to make him say something I had made but there again I just need to calm down and take my time and read the directions.
I am dying to make Betty Boop walk out on the stage... do her little dance .... and then walk off. If I can do that... it will make my day... ( probably my year ! ) But I want her a little more perfect before I make her a swf file.

Last nite I was experimenting with using some shading techniques and I can see there is hope for me to learn that. I will look at your sample and see what you did.
I made a simple circle...solid color....... double clicked on the layer to bring up the layer settings .....Selected the Shadow tab.... set a layer shadow color and layer shading color etc.... then duplicated the layer and went back and changed the shading angles, opacity and color..... Interesting results and will be useful I hope.....Thx for the sample you sent Myles.

Oh dear, are you saying that if I do a masked shadow layer ( or anything masked ) that it won't export in the swf file...? I did the shadow tut yesterday that was masked and I can't believe how easy it was. Yes, swf is my file of choice as I expect to be putting what I make in Moho ... in my Swish movies.

Yes, Vern, I tried to make a skin style cause I saw in a tut that you could but there again I didn't pay attention as I was too anxious to get on to the next tut. Silly me. Guess I need to go over that tut again, and again, and again eh..?
So Much to learn.. !! I still haven't gotten back to getting Boops cloths to move with her legs... so may still need help with that!!
Vern I don't understand all you said about creating those styles ... duh.... !! I need to read up on that part again as I"m sure I will be needing it. If I over rode a style it sure wasn't cause I knew what I was doing ....

All I can say is "THANK YOU" so much for your help.... !! Moho is just too cool....

Wait till I finish Boop and post it on the Swish forums....LOL.... they will be amazed and so curious.. !! Whooooo hoooo.
Oh.. question.... how do I make a thing stop looping? When I made my boy say "hasta la viste, baby" yesterday... I wanted him to stop after he said it once.. but he kept on and on and on... till I wanted to smack him.. !!
Also.... I Loved your description of the Select Shape tool... a kidney bean under a beach umbrella.... too funny... !!!

Celeryhart

PS..... You know when you do a render and you have the option to save as.... well, first of all... what is a "targa"... and why would I need to save it as a jpg or png or whatever.....?? Say I"ve got Boop drawn and saved as a moho file.....why would I need her as a png as well...?

Is that a dumb question.....??

Celeryhart wrote:shadow color and layer shading color
[...]
Oh dear, are you saying that if I do a masked shadow layer ( or anything masked ) that it won't export in the swf file...? I did the shadow tut

Sorry to "rain on your parade" but not only masking - shadows and shading also won't export to Flash format - they are bitmap render effects. See the manual for more detail on what will and won't export to Flash.

Moho's full power is in creating animation for DVD etc. (Quicktime or AVI export is useful here). Flash export is also useful, but not the main focus.

Celeryhart wrote:PS..... You know when you do a render and you have the option to save as.... well, first of all... what is a "targa"... and why would I need to save it as a jpg or png or whatever.....?? Say I"ve got Boop drawn and saved as a moho file.....why would I need her as a png as well...?

Well, say you wanted to include your Moho-rendered character into a scene you are working on in Photoshop. PNG would be a good choice.

Targa (TGA) is an older format with some of the advantages of PNG - it supports an alpha channel and it is non-lossy. A lot of 3D programs and many image processing programs support TGA. Good for mapping your character onto a 3D polygon to make them exist in a 3D rendered environment.

PNG, GIF, JPG are also good if you want to post an image of your character onto a web page (or forum, like the rendered face above).
Some Flash-based programs will also import these images as still images for props, backgrounds, or symbols.

Celeryhart wrote:how do I make a thing stop looping?

I don't think you can set it in Moho.

If you are linking directly to the SWF on the web, you need to edit the SWF file directly to add a stop action - does Swish allow you to edit Moho-exported SWF files to add ActionScript?
If you are importing the SWF as a sprite, there should also be some ActionScript way to stop it looping.

If your SWF is embedded in a web page, you can set the loop property to true or false in the HTML.

If you are viewing the SWF in a standalone player, there is usually a setting in the player.

Regards, Myles.

Oh man, this is driving me nuts. I"ve torn your file apart Vern and I don't quite understand how you are getting your movements to move the skirt so nicely. Believe me I've tried, cried and almost died trying...
In the tuts... those little bones are already there so I don't know how they got there.. when I do what I think it wants me to.. things start flippen all over the place.... Ugh..... !!!

You have 2 bones in the torso.... then you've named your thigh bones... fine I got that... it's those two little bones on each side of the lower torso bones that are giving me grief. It looks to me like they are the children of the lower torso bone...yet it looks like only one is connected to it.... yet when I do that.. I get disaster. Can you'all take a look at this and explain where I"m going wrong. I feel I"m close... but no enchilada ... !!!


http://www.celeryhart.com/body-legs.zip

Myles, thanks.. I"ll make a little easy movie with shading etc later and load it into a sprite in Swish and see how it comes out. I"ll also read up on dealing with swf files. Right now I"ve got legs to worry about. I want so badly to learn all this and I"m expecting too much too soon... I need to get one thing right ... before I try much else. I can't wait to make Betty walk across the stage... but this skirt, bones problem is bugging me.


Celeryhart

With the Select Bone tool chosen (and you should be on the bone Layer in his file, too), open the "Bone Constraints" pulldown at the top of the main window. If you click on one of the small bones in the hip (actually, you might need to click on it twice, sometimes the bone constraints window doesn't update properly on the first click - dunno why), you'll see that the small bones controlling the dress have an Anglr Control Bone. In this case, the right leg bone is 6 (although feel free to give it a name, it often makes it easier to keep track), and the right hip bone is 4. So bone 6 has no Angle Control Bone, so you can move it freely, but bone 4 (the hip) has it's angle controlled by bone 6 (the leg), so you can't move it by itself. It always moves with the leg. Next to where it tells you what the Angle control bone is is another number, in this case 1. Thats the scaling for the bones movement relative to the one thats controlling it. So the "1" means if you move the leg +90 deg, then the hip does the same. If it was "-1", then when you move the leg +90 deg, then the hip would move -90 deg. IF it's .5, then the leg going +90 deg. would mean the hip would go +45 deg. You get the picture. Works well for situations like this.

You should also check out the tutorial bit using a controlled bone to make an arms "bicep" bulge when the arm is bent. Theres a lot of cool things you can do with it.

Heres another example I just whipped up-
brows.moho
One bone outside the head controls both eyebrows (with 3 bones in each eyebrow) on the face. The outermost bone's angle and position is controlled by the main bone, the angle middle one by the outermost, and the angle of the innermost by the outermost, but in the opposite direction. So, you angle the brows down, and you automatically get that "angry" eyebrow kinda look, more surprised or scared is you go up. It's a bit of a tradeoff in flexibility, but stuff like that can save you a lit of fiddlin' when you actually get down to animating.

If you look at that file and click on the top thigh bone, you'll see I did name the thigh bones... did I do that wrong..? Oh man, I"m missing something and it is very annoying.
Those little side bones are suppose to be the child of which bone..? The top thigh bone or the bottom torso bone..?
Yes, I see the little constraint thingies.... that is so cool... but somehow I"m missing how it all works together and what they need to be connected to. ...... You can see I used them on the feet too.

I did make her legs skinnier at the top and that helped a bit but her dress still does not move nicely with her legs..
Good grief... for the life of me I can't figure out how you did those eyebrows...... now that is too cute.... !!! I must learn that too.... !!! I"m such an idiot that I need step by step instructions where everything is spelled out exactly.... !! Thats why I wish the tuts would not start you with a half made project. Start with a blank page and work from there... !!! Thats what I need... or at least from just the drawing. The biceps already had bones in place and that seems to throw me off. I"m probably over thinking this whole thing and making it so much harder than it actually is but not by choice. I'm just not getting it.

Believe me I"ve checked out that "bicep" tut and it works great when I use their drawing and follow instructions. But when I try to do it myself I obviously don't connect the right bones to the right places.... Sigh... !!

Guess I need to give my head a shake and start all over again. Please bare with me and thanks so much for helping. This is really a great little program !

Celeryhart